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A few reflections on the days after the referendum

Like many of you I was shocked with the result of the referendum on Friday. In fact I was so unhappy that I could find in myself nothing but an angry voice. Truth be told I was never as angry in my entire life as when I heard of the Prime Minister’s resignation. Then, a day later, after I vented some of my frustration on social media, I realised one thing: how difficult it is to be kind when we’re angry. How difficult… it is.. to be kind when we’re angry. I think it is quite a powerful realisation. One that probably would help us all in dealing with and processing changes that we might not want go through.

On the Saturday and Sunday I was fortunate to be with family and friends celebrating the christenings of two wonderful little girls and on the Saturday when we were driving south with my family, I was thinking about the people who for the last forty or more years worked for European cooperation and strongly believed in its core values and purpose in the world. I felt the tragedy that they were going through, I saw the debris of their collapsed world and I heard the question that they were perhaps asking themselves: Was it all in vein? And my answer to them was: Don’t even think for one minute that it was in vein. It would be much greater a personal tragedy if for forty years you were working against your core values. That, to me, would be a tragedy.

So here came another realisation to me that actually it doesn’t matter if things fail in the end, but what matters is that you still want to commit and create. As Elizabeth Gilbert once said: Your ego is wounded but your soul is fine, your soul just says: Do you want to do it again? Do you still want to work for those values? That’s the key question.

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2 thoughts on “A few reflections on the days after the referendum”

Well argued and good for you! It would be best, however, for the promoters of the campaign to leave the EU to be asked to come up with solutions and answers to the practical questions now having to be addressed. One gets the impression that they are far from having any credible real answers and are actually expecting the very people and experts that they so despised during the campign to do it for them. They indeed are the leaders we should ask towork the miracles! Unlike arsonists starting fires and enjoying the flames they have fanned, they should actually be responsible for dowsing the flames!

I understand your heart and also the heart of many who are grieving like you. From the perspective of us here and the struggle we have to keep our borders safe and our Christian Heritage intact I also have understanding of the pain of those who feel they do not want to become equal partners in some decisions that are out of their best interests and control.